


you know we had it right

by wreckingtomlinson



Series: dusk and summer [2]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Punk Louis, Punk Luke, well pop punk but okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 09:44:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6606121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckingtomlinson/pseuds/wreckingtomlinson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke helps Louis find the words he's looking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you know we had it right

**Author's Note:**

> okay i had trouble tagging this one because the scene itself doesn't really involve much but it builds off everything that was in the last work in this series but i didn't think i should tag all that. anyway. i am trash for the louis/luke friendship dynamic so this is rather self-indulgent but O WELL
> 
> the title is from [San Francisco](https://youtu.be/9M1tku17tpY) by 5 Seconds of Summer (which i am obsessed with honestly) so it's featured in this fic. the lyrics are altered in places but it makes sense in the context of the story, i promise...ah it'll make sense once you read it.

“Fuck!” Louis screams, striking a line across the page so hard his pencil breaks.

There’s shuffling in the hallway before Luke pokes his head into the living room. “You okay, Tommo?”

“No,” is Louis’ petulant response. “I can’t—I feel like—nothing’s coming out the way I want it to. I’m trying and trying but it’s...it’s shit.” He grabs the little sharpener and jams the pencil tip into it.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Luke sits on a beanbag chair a few feet away, long legs stretching out on the floor. “When you’ve got all these thoughts inside your head but when you write it it isn’t what you wanted.”

“Exactly.” Louis is a minute away from crumpling up this sheet of paper and tossing it in the recycle bin with the other eight pages of lyrics he hated.

He must be looking at the bin, because Luke stands up suddenly and turns the blue container over. “Louis, you know we never get rid of lyrics we don’t like. They go in the box.”

Louis groans. “But they’re shit.”

“Imagine if you’d let me get rid of the lyrics that turned into the first verse of ‘No Control,’” Luke admonishes him, sitting down on the sofa next to Louis. “So we’re going to work with these.” He spreads the pages out on the coffee table in front of them. “I like _I can still taste you like it was yesterday_.”

“Doesn’t that sound cliche though?”

“Forget cliche. If you like it, keep it,” Luke says firmly. “Don’t overthink it yet. Let’s see what other hidden gems you tried to recycle.”

Luke spends the next ten minutes picking out lines that he thinks are good, writing them on a new sheet of paper. Louis sharpens his pencils and stares at the empty line in front of him. _I wanna get back to _________,_ it reads, and he notices that Luke’s copied it onto his sheet.

“If we can finish that, it could be really nice. Gotta be the right word, though.” Luke nudges his sheet over to Louis. “Okay, so it’s really rough, but I literally just went through and picked out lines and put them together and wrote filler stuff in between.”

 

 _I can still taste you like it was yesterday_  
____________ ?_  
_You were more than I deserved_  
_I see you laughing in the sun_  
_Reminds me of when we were free  
_ _Something about you is haunting me_

 _I wanna get back to ____________  
_In the city lights_  
_Because you know we had it right_  
_I wanna get back to ____________  
_In the summer night  
_ _You know we had it right, alright, all night_

 

Louis starts humming to himself, a melody forming in his head as he reads the lyrics on the page. Luke, when he really takes control on a song, can be a genius. “It’s a start. If we can get those blanks filled it could really be something.”

Luke taps a pen at the line _I wanna get back to ___________._ “What were you thinking about? Like, a place, or a time, or what?”

Louis shrugs. “A place, I guess. Could be anything.”

Luke regards him carefully. “Are you thinking of that hotel?”

Yes, Louis was thinking of the hotel. He doesn’t say anything, but Luke takes that as an affirmative. “I wonder if we can work that in, you know?”

“I don’t want to name the hotel.” Louis closes his eyes, sighing. “I don’t want it to be that specific. I mean, everyone’s gonna know who it’s about, but...”

“Then let’s leave it for now.” Luke clears a bit of space in front of him. “Want to fuck around with the melody?”

“Let’s.” It gets his mind away from the lyrics, which right now are hitting a little too close to his heart. Either Luke did this on purpose, to try to get an emotional song out of him, or he really just was pulling random lines. Louis sits down at the piano, poking at keys until he finds his first note. As he sounds it out and plays with the timing, he can hear Luke start to try and keep time, his hand slapping down on the table. And Louis starts singing, his voice quiet, changing lyrics around on the spot.

 

 _I wanna get back to the beginning_  
_To that summer night_  
_You know, you know, you know, you know we got it right_  
_I wanna get back to where it started_  
_To the L.A. lights  
_ _You know, you know, you know, you know we had it right_

 

It’s still not what he likes, but at least he’s getting words out.

“Nice,” Luke says from behind him. “I’m not sure about how ‘back to the beginning’ works with that melody though.”

“Yeah, I’m not sold on that, but it was the first thing that came. What if...what if we changed the name of the city? Technically...it was really in Santa Monica, but we could find something that fits. Um, Calabasas?” _I wanna get back to Calabasas_. It fits, but once Louis sings it out loud he hates it.

“No, it’s kind of awkward to sing, I think.” Luke starts listing off places in California. “Sacramento. San Diego. Buena Vista. Culver City.”

“ _Culver_ _City_?” Louis wads up a blank sheet of paper and launches it at the guitarist. “The fuck?”

“Hey, I’m just thinking out loud! You could just use California. _I wanna get back to California_ ,” Luke suggests.

Yeah, Louis likes that. No other city is fitting in that line—

“Wait, no. San Francisco.”

“What?”

“San Francisco. I can’t believe I didn’t think of San Francisco.” Louis’ been to San Francisco a handful of times. One time was with Harry. He looks at what Luke wrote down, and it’s all rushing together at once.

“Try.”

Luke counts him in and Louis starts singing again, this time adding some chords.

 

 _I wanna get back to where we started_  
_To the summer night_  
_You know, you know, you know, you know we got it right_  
_I wanna get back to San Francisco_  
_To the city lights  
_ _You know, you know, you know, you know we had it right_

 

When he turns around Luke gives him a thumbs up.

“I think you got it.”

The two of them spend the rest of the day holed up in Louis’ house, hammering out a rough draft of the lyrics. Four days later, they get the band together and record it, Louis and Luke sharing lead vocals.

 

 _I can still taste you like it was yesterday_  
_Making plans to rule the world_  
_You were more than I deserved_  
_I see you running in the sand_  
_Long hair blowing in the wind  
__Never thought that it would end_  

 _Leaves fall from the tallest trees_  
_Even mountains crumble into the sea_  
_Holding on to memories  
_ _That I can’t let go_

 _I wanna get back to where we started_  
_To the summer night_  
_You know, you know, you know, you know we got it right_  
_I wanna get back to San Francisco_  
 _In the firelight  
__You know, you know, you know, you know we had it right_  

 _Remember that weekend that we got out of town_  
_Drove into infinity_  
_I held you till you fell asleep_  
_Without you, the smell of your perfume_  
_Reminds me of when we were free  
__I swear that it’s still haunting me_  

 _Leaves fall from the tallest trees_  
_Even mountains crumble into the sea_  
_Holding on to memories  
_ _That I can’t let go_

 _I wanna get back to where we started_  
_To the summer night_  
_You know, you know, you know, you know we got it right_  
_I wanna get back to San Francisco_  
 _In the firelight  
_ _You know, you know, you know, you know we had it right_

 _Don’t gotta say anything, don’t gotta say anything  
_ _Don’t say a word at all, don’t say a word at all._

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still sorry
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://maybetheyrefireproof.tumblr.com)


End file.
